My Invented Life Read Online Free Page A

fooling around with a new look.”
    Mom drives me to Hair Central, where styling guru Miranda does her best to even out what’s left. My hair ends up very short, except for a fringe in back that I insist upon based on a lesbian rocker hairdo I saw on the Net. I ask Miranda for some green highlights. She clicks her tongue at me.
    “Earth tones are the style this year,” she says.
    How would she know? Her tongue isn’t even pierced.
    On the drive home, Mom brings up the topic we’ve both been avoiding.
    “Why did you cut off your hair?”
    “I felt like a change. And I’m a vegetarian now, too,” I say, employing a simple sleight of hand. Look at the egg. Now it’s gone. See the pretty silk handkerchief.
    “What brought that on?”
    I pinch the roll at my waist. “I’m tired of being fat.”
    She shakes her head at me. “Your weight is healthy.”
    I don’t want to be healthy; I want to be sexy. “Did you know that they raise pigs in pens so small they can’t turn around?” I say.
    I can tell from the way she presses her lips together that she will say something reasonable, like we rarely eat pork anyway. We pull up to a red light, and she turns to look at me. I roll my eyes as a preliminary rebuttal to her future argument. She surprises me by saying something entirely different.
    “I didn’t try vegetarianism till college,” she says. “You’re a little early.”
    We get home and choose a recipe together for dinner. While I chop the veggies, she makes the sauce. After a while I admit to cutting off my hair for tryouts, neglecting to mention my new fascination with coming-out stories and how that may have influenced me. Nor do I say a word about my Eva-is-a-lesbian theory. She thinks I went too far cutting my hair for a role I haven’t gotten yet, but seems satisfied by the quarter truths I tell her.
    “All’s well that ends with a cute haircut,” she says, and I laugh like a good daughter should.
    I set the wok on the table in front of Dad. “Where’s Eva?” I ask.
    “With Bryan,” Mom says.
    Well, lah-di-dah.
    She misinterprets the look on my face. “You’ll find a boyfriend like Bryan someday,” she says.
    No, Bryan will be my boyfriend someday
.
    “I don’t think Bryan’s so great,” Dad says.
    If Dad had his way, there would be no boyfriends until we finished graduate school.
    “Although anybody would be better than your last boyfriend, Prince Charmless,” he adds, winking at me. Obviously he forgot that Eva went out with Prince Charmless first.
    “Roz decided to go vegetarian,” Mom says. She fills his plate.
    “Cool,” he says.
    He’s not one to criticize hot food set in front of him, with or without meat. Both of my parents like to cook, but only on weekends when they aren’t tired out from work. Unfortunately, we’re a family who’d rather eat out in a town with four mediocre restaurants.
    “Your next play is
Wind in the Willows
, right?” Dad says.
    “I told you we’re doing Shakespeare.”
    Dad has “gotcha” written all over his face. “The new hair and the new diet,” he says, holding up a bamboo shoot. “I thought you might be auditioning for lead beaver.”
    “Ha, very funny.” I flick my new tail. “A person who hasn’t changed his hair for twenty years wouldn’t understand.” Dad’s retro hippie mop is the perfect complement to his ancient Jerry Garcia sweatshirt.
    “You both have adorable hair,” Mom says.
    She stands up to close the new drapes against the prying eyes of P. Tom, our very own neighborhood perv. P. Tom is big news in Yolo Bluffs, the most excitement we’ve had since the peach blight two years ago. No one has caught him yet, but he leaves traces—extra-large Birkenstock footprints and Juicy Fruit gum wrappers by our windows.
    Eva finally comes home sans Bryan. “Didn’t he want cocoa?” Mom asks.
    “School night.” Eva collapses on the couch.
    “He’s such a good boy.”
    I point at my new hair. Eva looks away, and I can